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A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

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Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#231

Post by jacquesm »

Moru wrote: post #154
jacquesm wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got that backwards. There is no downside. Software does not an airplane make, even though there are now attempts to use software to fix airplane design issues. You wrote 'Airbus' as though Boeings R&D in their software would somehow magically translate into an advantage for Airbus. But Airbus should also open source their code, and for exactly the same reason. In fact Airplane certification institutions such a…

But Airbus has been doing the computer aided flight longer than Boeing so mabe it would be more push back from airbus to not give Boeing any free code?

The whole idea that you could not open source it with such restrictions that a competitor could not use the code is so strange. It is perfectly possible to open source code in such a way that you can't use it for free in your own commercial product without a license.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#232

Post by goodcanadian »

tjr wrote: post #41
usrusr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The moving map could easily be fed from a separated consumer grade GPS. Same for all other metrics that the median passenger would care about (height, speed over ground), except for the ever-impressive outside temperature.

Outside temperature is pretty impressive indeed. The map also shows projected flight plan and ETA, which would not come purely from GPS.

I have never seen one that showed a flight plan. They only had a straight-line (well, a great circle route) to the destination. ETA was pretty clearly straight-line distance divided by (average?) speed.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#233

Post by lagadu »

panarky wrote: post #123
msbarnett wrote: post #23

> But Boeing counters that it has both "additional protection mechanisms" in the CIS/MS that would prevent its bugs from being exploited from the ODN, and another hardware device between the semi-sensitive IDN—where the CIS/MS is located—and the highly sensitive CDN. That second barrier, the company argues, allows only data to pass from one part of the network to the other, rather than the executable commands that wo…

Boeingspeak: "IOActive's scenarios cannot affect any critical or essential airplane system and do not describe a way for remote attackers to access important 787 systems like the avionics system." English: "This random guy on the internet discovered real vulnerabilities and we're scrambling like hell to fix them. We hope this carefully worded statement written by lawyers will keep the public and the FAA off our back…

This is Boeing we're talking about here, the English version would be more to the tune of "We're not fixing this until multiple planes crash and even then we'll try to weasel our way out of it."

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#234

Post by skgoa »

nexuist wrote: post #228
brokenmachine wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading that just makes me think about how "wild west" self-driving cars seem to be, and most people seem to think that's acceptable. We have Teslas that don't have anywhere near this kind of security or redundancy "autopiloting" themselves right now on highways. People seem to be ok with that because it's a car and not a plane. But the way I see it, there's thousands of those cars on the roads, and a software bug ac…

>We have Teslas that don't have anywhere near this kind of security or redundancy "autopiloting" themselves right now on highways. Not just Teslas, modern vehicles in general. I would say that in terms of security Tesla is probably doing a more bang-up job than the other automakers; it was only a few years ago that Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek remotely killed a Grand Cherokee on the highway.

As an automotive security engineer, I have to interject. Miller and Valasek hacked into a car that was very far removed from what we consider modern automotive electronics. Any truly modern car will have decoupled networks with firewalls in-between. It will have intrusion detection systems, secure boot, signed code, encrypted memory, will communicate critical information via TLS etc.

The Jeep hack (as well as their Toyota and Ford hacks) was exptremely important, because it put public pressure on the less technologically capable OEMs to get with the times and implement a (somewhat) secure electronics architecture. As someone who shares the road with those shitty cars I'm thankful for that. But even at the time of the hack, there were many OEMs whose cars were not anywhere close to that vulnerable and the industry hasn't stood still since then.

And since you mention Tesla, I also have to point out that they are one of the worst at security. E.g. they have an RJ45 port behind the dash that you can just plug into. It used to be that this gave you complete access to everything, but people abused it. So Tesla made it a little bit harder, though not impossible, to get into their system. Tesla also has a lot of bugs in their smartphone integration that allow "fun" exploits like remote unlocking.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#236

Post by kakwa_ »

icebraining wrote: post #115
alltakendamned wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data diodes. Call me when you bypass them, I have a job for you.

Data dioses don't prevent malicious data that exploits vulnerabilities and takes over from being transmitted, they only prevent the malware from communicating back.

Yes and no.

Data diode can be put either ways, with different results:

* case 1, you allow traffic to only go out:

This way, nothing can come inside the system, but the system can export data. Here basically, confidentiality is of secondary importance, but integrity is crucial. It is the Biba model. It can be seen on Command and Control systems for critical industrial installation for example. For example, with power plants C&C system must avoid to be hacked, but exporting to other systems data such as their power output and operational condition is generally required.

* case 2, you allow traffic to only go in:

This way, the system can ingest data from the outside, but nothing goes out. Here basically, confidentiality is primordial, integrity a bit less. It's the Bell-LaPadula model. It can be seen in Military intelligence systems for example. Here you collect pieces of information and you make decisions on them, and all that must be kept confidential.

To summarize:

* One way: you enforce integrity

* The other: you enforce confidentiality

As an ending note, data diodes are generally pretty simple: basically you take a fiber with TX and RX link, and you cut one. There are a few more tricks (UDP only, sending multiple times because you don't have ACKs, static ARP tables, tricking the NIC into thinking it's up without signal), but that's the core of it.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#237

Post by distant_hat »

akira2501 wrote: post #189
jdavis703 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure. Last month there was a traffic light that was turned the wrong way, such that it was impossible to tell if the light was green. So I climbed the poll and turned it to the right direction. Another fellow pedastrian thanked me. A bad actor could do anything from a DOS (positioning it the wrong direction) to tampering with the bulbs (for example swapping out all the…

> I can tell you traffic lights are extremely insecure. All municipal infrastructure tends to be. It's usually implemented to a cost and security considerations are completely absent. You can bet that in any given city, all those street light control cabinets are keyed alike and the city has no true idea who has keys and who doesn't. This exact problem applies to so many domains it's literally for lack of effort that…

In India I found that in Bangalore (a city with far better infrastructure than most other), for a lot of intersections the traffic lights are toggle switches that some cop flicks on and off every so often. There is no lock on the switch cabinet.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#238

Post by sandos »

jasonjayr wrote: post #173
johannes1234321 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MacOS and related don't run the airplane. Pilots have an iPad for some checklists and other things where "have you tried turning it off and on again" works as failure prcedure. If a failure, caused by a compiler bug leading to an overflow in a rare flight situation, happens on an airplane system a reboot is not really the option you want to depend on.

Ironically, I recall reading about a mid-flight incident where the procedure to bring things back involved turning the entire plane off and on again.

That will not always work very well, inertial navigation systems often wants to be completely still for a couple of minutes to calibrate themselves.

I have heard about just flying with no G-load for a while and getting some basic instruments working. But I dont think you will get full nav functionality back.

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#239

Post by taneq »

tyingq wrote: post #131
blackflame7000 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Air Disasters did an episode on this flight with interviews from the people that diagnosed the problem. https://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/air-disasters/free-...

Searched a bit more, and found this from 2018: "Experts are still not sure of the root cause of the malfunction in the data unit, but subsequent software changes by Airbus mean any similar error in the future won’t lead to another terrifying nosedive." https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/incidents/terr... Sounds like I guessed right.

Wow, "we don't know what went wrong but we're certain we fixed it!" That's nice and convincing...

Re: A Boeing Code Leak Exposes Security Flaws Deep in a 787's Guts

#240

Post by blunte »

magduf wrote: post #168
blunte wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given in the US that corporations are allowed to contribute to political campaigns, and that one party has a very strong sense of "regulation is bad", there is intense pressure to deregulate as much as possible. And with the current administration and its choice to not staff many positions while cutting budgets (and while enacting executive orders to eliminate some regulations), the FAA is really unable to do anythin…

That's not true, because they just did something: they said they were satisfied with Boeing here. They could have been honest and said "we're not competent to properly evaluate Boeing's design decisions".

But the mandate is that because of budget cuts, the FAA must depend on the manufacturers themselves to be the SMEs. Thus, they are asking Boeing to judge Boeing's own systems.

If B says, "It's all good", and B is the SME, then FAA must agree and pass.

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